I went on Friday to catch up with a few people but after the carnage of last year I was happy to just go the one day. Good to meet Volko and Simone from Buena Vista Tattoo at long last. Our secretary Kirsty at Flamin’ Eight has been offered an apprenticeship with them in Germany so although I will be very sad to see her go I am over the moon for her as I’m sure it will be an amazing experience.

Tuesday

This week has been somewhat slow although tattooing the above memorial tattoo as a girl’s first was a nice piece to do.

It’s always humbling to be able to give someone a tattoo like this as I know it matters a great to them. The trust they put in you to do tattoos that mean something such as this one is also one of the nicest things about my job.

Thursday

Got tattooed today by the delectable Luca Ortis. The last session was a bit hard to handle but todays was fine and I think I could have probably gone for a few more hours were it not for Luca having an afternoon appointment. One more session and hopefully it will be done which will be one more part of my body to cross off the list. Going to New Wave also gave me a good opportunity to glean some words of wisdom from Lal, always a pleasure.

With nothing major planned for the rest of the week I am hoping to at long last be able to crack on with a bit of drawing, so hopefully the next post will include a few more sketches etc.

Firstly apologies for the shoddy lack of posts over the past week. I hate it when people do this as when they do get back to posting it’s usually a load of hastily thought out crap, most of which is made up of stuff they have half forgotten. I’ll try to avoid that anyway.

Anyway last Sunday went for the usual skate which was fun. This weeks venue was Finsbury park.

Newton brought along his mate Pete who encouraged us all morning with outbursts such as “get in there you jessy” and “you carve like a wet sock” etc which was nice to hear in his broad Australian accent.

I’m always shit scared I’m going to stack it and break my wrists, which would never do as I understand it can be a slow healing process. Still one can’t worry about these things too much I guess.

Tuesday evening.

Went round Ely’s for some food and met Anu’s dog Po which was super cute (see picture of me and him below).

Mexican food! How I love thee. I can’t believe Ely will soon be going away to South America for four months! What will I do for someone to chat tattoo bollocks with, and ask for advice on lettering?! The studio will be a duller place without her and I will miss her so. I worry but I’m sure she will be fine. Plus maybe I can poach some prospective Japanese tattoo clients in her absence! I have felt the need to get stuck into a good dragon since Luca started the one that’s slowly growing on my thigh. So anyone who is interested in getting some Japanese stuff please let me know.

I am sending it out to the universe hence forth. Let’s see what comes back.

Thursday.

Down to Brighton again to work alongside those delectable chaps at Nine.

Although I feel very grounded working in London I have to admit that the I have found infrequent change of scenery most refreshing. Plus I always enjoy the train ride down once I am actually on the train. There always seems to me something luxurious about being ferried around on a train. Although my trip may have been some what more clement were it not for a man dressed in low range sports wear that came to sit opposite me at Clapham Junction and insisted on yawning, tutting and sighing in a “woe is me” type way for the remainder of the journey.

Having left the train and this lunatic behind I proceeded to have a nice day continuing a sleeve of old school nautical stuff on a charming Scottish lad. Yesterday was mermaid under the arm day. Pictures to come soon hopefully as they are on Jack’s camera.

The stencil machine was broken so it was back to doing it by hand which was actually quite satisfying.

Got my left foot started by Jack as well although I am reluctant to put any pictures of that up just yet as it is not quite finished.

Dead bird on the left. Alive bird on the right. It wasn’t as bad as I thought is would be. Annoying though as it is such a small space.

Friday (today).

So nice to have a few days off for the London Convention! I’m actually not too fussed about going but I know I will sort of enjoy it once I’m there and it will be great to see people I haven’t seen for a while. Hopefully I can avoid a. buying too much stuff I don’t really need and b. letting the hoards of tattoo people drive me into a state of panic.

Started a sketch of a woman’s face which may turn into something or may not. We will see.

This whole week has been a bit odd though. Starting this blog has given me a little boost and stayed the usual pangs of melancholy I tend to feel when the seasons start to shift, or suspect they are about to. It’s good to be productive as my friend Newton always says. Speaking of which I am supposed to be meeting him for a skate at Finsbury Park bowl at around 8am today and here it is at almost 1 and I’m still wide awake. I’ve just gone and found some wine in the kitchen that has been left there by our Californian house guest. I’ll replace it tomorrow.

Anyway. Started the day off with a little drawing as my first client had got it into his head that his appointment was this coming Tuesday for some reason so it gave me a few hours to try to copy a photo of a Michaelangelo statue I found in a book. Then I had a nice man in who ended up getting a load of lettering down his arm. Funny thing was his wife had typed it out and she had spelt again “agian”. I noticed when I got to the g and he was very grateful. We had a fun time afterwards telling his wife we had only noticed her spelling mistake after I had finished the tattoo. Her face was the perfect picture of horror. More so as she was one of those funny people who insisted on overseeing every part of the making of the stencil and all that just to see I am doing my job properly, and got a little huffy when I said she couldn’t come in while I was tattooing her husband.

There is some commotion outside. Just looked out and it could almost be 8 or 9 in the evening as opposed to gone 1am. I’m expecting to hear the crazy man that likes to wander up and down our road late at night arguing with himself loudly.

Maybe this city never really does sleep. Or if it does it’s a kind of semi – sleep where it’s constantly trying to convince itself it’s asleep while living out half imagined nightmares from the previous day.

Well I’m hoping to get the hang of this blogging thing but am finding both slow and confusing at present so please be patient. This first post is just a tester really so please stay tuned for (hopefully), more interesting things.